1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of document authentication, and more particularly to a machine and process for handwriting with embedded barcodes.
2. Description of Prior Art
Handwritten signatures have been used to authenticate documents and objects since the invention of writing. A person""s signature is a unique easily recognizable identifier, which can be easily created with a pen or other writing implement, at almost any time and circumstance. The signatures of historical figures, sport and entertainment personalities are in themselves collectable, and when affixed to other objects convey cachet and are valued by collectors and historians. Lately, such signatures and signed objects such as baseballs have become commodities of popular culture and produced in quantity. They are often authenticated by questionable means such as encapsulation in plastic holders and association with an attached xe2x80x9ccertificate of authenticityxe2x80x9d.
Barcodes and other machine-readable codes have been used for the identification of goods, the sorting of paper forms and other related uses since the 1960xe2x80x2s. Variable barcodes printed on demand have found applications such as retail, medical and forms processing. In some applications such as driver""s licenses, barcodes have been employed for document authentication and identification
The prior technology of signature authentication has been based on the forensic analysis of hand-written signatures, and inks used to produce them. This time honored approach requires the examination of the actual signature by an expert. Characteristics of the ink as well as the writing itself are examined and an opinion is rendered. The prior technology of signature analysis is deficient in that it requires the services of an expert, is expensive, time consuming and cannot typically be accomplished at the point of purchase or exchange. When a xe2x80x9ccertificate-of-authenticityxe2x80x9d is used to authenticate an object, the certificate itself is subject to being counterfeited.
An example of electronic signature verification is found in U. S. Pat. No. 5,109,426, xe2x80x9cMethods and Apparatus for Signature Verificationxe2x80x9d. A writing pen with electronic motion sensors is connected to a computer. The pen communicates movement data to the computer during writing. A person records a set of his/her signatures using the pen. A subsequent signature by someone claiming to be this person is made using this same system. The motion and shape features of this current signature are compared statistically to the features and variability of the stored signatures to determine if the signature is authentic.
This type of system is unlike the present invention, which stores identifying data in the signature itself in barcode form so that a past signature can be authenticated by scanning data encoded in the signature.
Machine-readable codes such as barcodes are used for authentication by associating a bar-coded document such as a certificate-of-authenticity or special label with an object. Such authenticating documents attest to the provenance of an article, but this prior technology is deficient because the machinereadable codes are themselves subject to counterfeiting and duplication.
The primary object of the invention is to authenticate and verify handwritten signatures. Other objects are:
to authenticate and verify handwriting in general;
to timestamp signatures and other handwriting;
to authenticate collectibles, and deter counterfeiting;
to provide an audit trail for signed documents and objects;
to provide stand-alone or networked authentication;
to provide a writing instrument that creates a trail for the forensic investigation of writing made with it;
to provide a writing instrument that embeds digital data in the writing.
These objectives are achieved in a writing pen that forms a line of ink from a sequence of small line segments of at least two lengths in a pattern that encodes information in the line. The information includes the location and time of writing, a pen identifier, and a pen usage counter. This allows a signature to be authenticated by scanning the signature, extracting the information, and comparing it to known times, locations, and pen uses of a claimed signatory. Autographs of famous persons can be authenticated this way. The pen has an ink jet head that produces the encoded line under control of a logic and data processor. A global positioning system, internal clock, pressure-sensing stylus, pen motion detector, event counter, and pen identification number, all in the pen body, provide inputs to the processor. The rate of production of the line segments is proportional to the writing speed.